Saturday, May 29, 2010

The second annual Youth Media Education Conference will be sponsored by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission and the Women of Color Media Justice Initiative on June 3, 2010 at California State Dominguez Hills’ Loker Student Union. Students from Crenshaw, Gardena, Washington Prep and King-Drew Medical Magnet High Schools, in addition to Bret Harte and Clay Middle Schools, have been invited to participate. The conference will involve students in youth presentations on media literacy and advocacy workshops and socially conscious youth musical performance. Topics will include improving media representations of young women and men of color, addressing violence against women of color in music and video, developing positive images of masculinity and male responsibility, highlighting LGBT youth perspectives on the media, undocumented youth advocacy and media and designing alternative media by countering the influence racist, sexist and homophobic media stereotypes have on youth behaviors and mental health.

Women of Color Media Justice Initiative (WCMJI)

The Women of Color Media Justice Initiative (WCMJI) is a collaborative partnership of the Los Angeles City Commission on the Status of Women, the Ida B. Wells Institute, Mother’s Day Radio and the Women’s Leadership Project (WLP), a service-learning program currently based at Gardena High School. The organization’s mission is to educate young women of color on the history and politics of media representations and how they influence cultural perceptions of race, gender and sexual orientation. WCMJI is dedicated to informing young women of color about how images are created, promoted and disseminated by the media as an industry, and engaging them in advocating for changes in media representation of women of color within the film, TV, print media and music industries. As a school-community based initiative, WCMJI provides young women with critical pedagogy and scholarship about the way the media shapes their world views, behaviors and perceptions by tying it to their lived experiences, home and community contexts.